The present invention relates generally to embroidery applications. More particularly, the present invention provides a technique including a method, system, and device for analyzing stitch information on embroidery patterns, which are used on commercial and non-commercial sewing applications.
Many embroidery techniques are known. In the early days, people manually sewed colored threads into decorative patterns on small pieces of cloth by hand. The cloth was often held by a frame, which firmly held it in place, while skilled hands applied colored thread to the cloth to form patterns. These patterns included flowers, cartoons, and other decorative features. Multi-colored patterns often required the use of different colored threads, which had to be applied to sewing needles by hand. Since the patterns were generally sewn by hand, conventional embroidery was often time consuming and difficult to perform. Sewing machines replaced, in part, some of the conventional hand sewing techniques for embroidery. These sewing machines often provided a semi-automatic process for sewing patterns of threads onto pieces of cloth. Since sewing machines could stitch much faster than a human being, embroidery using sewing machines was more efficient. Sewing machines still required a skillful operator in order to make embroidery patterns in a high quality and efficient manner.
With the electronic age, computerized sewing machines evolved to automatically stitch patterns onto pieces of cloth to create an embroidery design. This design is derived from embroidery stitch data. In the sewing machine, embroidery stitch data translates into a series of stitches to be sewn on a work cloth to form an embroidery design. The stitch data include an ordered set of stitch coordinates or displacements and interspersed control codes. The stitch coordinates generally specify a spatial location where the embroidery needle pierces the work cloth. The control codes generally specify events. These events include thread changes used mainly to change the color of the thread; long or jump stitches: and end of the embroidery design.
The stitches are often numbered as coordinates from xe2x80x9c1xe2x80x9d to xe2x80x9cn,xe2x80x9d where n is the number of stitches in the design. For example, stitch number 1 corresponds to the first needle pierce, stitch number 2 corresponds to the second needle pierce, and stitch number n corresponds to the last needle pierce. The set of embroidery stitch data for a design is commonly called a stitch-based design, and is often saved as a computer file. Embroidery stitch data are generally derived from outline data derived from a scanned or bitmap image (or drawn by a user in an embroidery drawing program). Outline data or compressed data process into embroidery stitch data using many well-known techniques. Normally the outline data represent a plurality of figures, where each figure is a separate object in the overall design. As merely an example, a flower pattern includes three elements, each representing a petal of the flower.
It is often useful to analyze a stitch-based design before sending the design to an automatic embroidery machine. Such analysis may include detecting the stitch numbers of long stitches, detecting stitch density, or detecting stitch type, for example, zigzag, fill, or satin stitch type. Unfortunately, most conventional analysis techniques are limited. For example, most analysis tools only provide a picture of an embroidery design, which shows the design and the stitches that make up the design in a two-dimensional coordinate space. Some tools provide a textual list of stitch coordinates and control codes, but such a list is of limited value because a typical design contains many thousands of stitches. Furthermore, conventional tools cannot determine which stitches to modify in order to modify one or more figures of a stitch-based design. Although there are automatic methods that convert embroidery stitch data back to outline date, these methods are often complex and expensive; they occur for the most part automatically and out of the control of the user; and they do not always give the result the user intends. The data processing that originally creates embroidery stitch data from outline data normally processes each element in a design into one or several blocks of consecutive stitches. Thus the problem of determining which stitches to modify in order to modify one or more figures of a stitch-based design can largely be reduced to a problem of determining the starting and ending stitch number, where the starting stitch and ending stitch and the stitches in between comprise the element in question.
From the above, it is seen that improved tools for computer aided embroidery designs are desirable.
According to the present invention, a technique for analyzing stitch information on an embroidery pattern is provided. In exemplary embodiment, the present invention provides a user device and method for identifying characteristics of stitch data using a computer interface device. The present user device and method allow, for example, a user to easily identify characteristics of the embroidery data such as stitch length and stitch angle, and to use those characteristics in order to determine the stitches that comprise individual elements of a design.
In a specific embodiment, the present invention provides a graphical user interface device. The user interface device includes a display for an embroidery design, which is shown in electronic form. The display is coupled to a micro-processing device such as a microprocessor, microcomputer, or the like. The display also has a representation of a stitch (or plurality of stitches) in electronic form on a first axis of the display. The display also shows a property of the stitch in electronic form on a second axis of the display, where the second axis intersects the first axis for reference. The property of the stitch can include, among others, stitch length, stitch angle, and stitch color. Other features can also be included depending upon the application.
In an alternative aspect, the present invention provides a method for selecting an element from a plurality of elements in a complex embroidery design. The method includes providing stitch data that defines an embroidery design, where the stitch data include an element or a plurality of elements, which are separable discrete features of the complex design. The element includes a plurality of stitches in between a starting stitch number and an ending stitch number. The element is derived from or is one of a plurality of elements, which define the embroidery design. The method also includes selecting long stitches as the starting stitch number and/or the ending stitch number. The long stitches define a beginning and/or an end of the plurality of stitches defining the element.
Still further, the present invention provides a method for selecting a region in a complex embroidery design. The complex embroidery design is displayed on a user device coupled to a computing device. The method includes providing a stitches in time graph, which includes a plurality of stitches, on a user display. The plurality of stitches comprise at least a first group of stitches and a second group of stitches, where the first group of stitches is separated from the second group of stitches by a long stitch. The method also includes selecting a portion of the plurality of stitches, using a cursor applied to the portion of the plurality of stitches. The selected portion is from a group consisting of the first group of stitches, the second group of stitches, a portion of the first group of stitches a portion of the second group of stitches or any combination of the first group of stitches and the second group of stitches.
Numerous benefits are achieved by way of the present invention over conventional techniques. In a specific embodiment, the present invention provides easy to use tools to analyze a stitch-based embroidery design. Here, a goal is attained through a novel display of several charts and graphs, which we collectively call the xe2x80x9cStitches-in-Timexe2x80x9d view or graph. Stitches-in-Time(trademark) is a trademark term owned by the present Applicants. Each chart or graph has stitch number or time as one axis, and some property of each stitch as the other axis. The present embodiment charts the properties stitch length, stitch angle, and stitch color. In an alternative embodiment, the present invention provides an improved method to select one figure from a plurality of figures in a stitch-based design. Here, the present invention uses Stitches-in-Time charts and graphs, especially the stitch length chart, by enabling a user to easily select a run of consecutive stitches between any two long stitches in a stitch-based design. Because long stitches often delimit different figures in a stitch-based design, this method often can be used to select one figure from a plurality of figures in a stitch-based design. Depending upon the embodiment, one or more of these advantages may exist, without limiting the scope of the claims herein. These and other benefits will be described in more detail throughout the present specification, and more particularly below.
These and other embodiments of the present invention, as well as its advantages and features, are described in more detail in conjunction with the text below and attached Figs.